o make his shrievalty memorable . . . and,
moreover, the Lord-Lieutenant was an old man.

In the library that evening after dinner she opened fire. The small
function at the Girls' Friendly had been a success; but she wished to
do something more for Merchester--"where we ought to be a real
influence for good--living as we do so close to it."

She added, "I hear that Mr. Bamberger's seat is by no means safe, and
another General Election may be on us at any moment. . . . I know how
little you like Mr. Bamberger personally: but after all, and until
_you_ will consent to take his place--Mr. Bamberger stands between us
and the rising tide of Socialism. I was discussing this with Mr.
Colt to-day."

"Who is Mr. Colt?" asked Sir John.

"You must have met him. He is Chaplain of St. Hospital, and quite a
personality in Merchester . . . though I don't know," pursued Lady
Shaftesbury, musing, "that one would altogether describe him as a
gentleman. But ought we to be too particular when the cause is at
stake, and heaven knows how soon the Germans will be invading us?"

The end was that Sir John, who loved his young wife, gave her a free
hand, of which she made the most. Almost before he was aware of it,
he found himself Chairman of a General Committee, summoning a
Sub-Committee of Ways and Means. At the first meeting he announced
that his lady had consented to set aside, throughout the winter
months, one day a week from hunting, and offered Shaftesbury Hall as
head-quarters of the Costume Committee.

Thereupon it was really astonishing with what alacrity not only
the "best houses" around Merchester, but the upper-middle-class
(its damsels especially) caught the contagion. Within a week
"Are you Pageantising?" or, in more condensed slang, "Do you Padge?"
became the stock question at all social gatherings in the
neighbourhood of the Close. To this a stock answer would be--

"Oh, I don't know! I suppose so." Here the respondent would
simulate a slight boredom. "One will have to mix with the most
impossible people, of course"--Lady Shaftesbury had won great
popularity by insisting that, in a business so truly national, no
class distinctions were to be drawn--"but anyhow it will fill up the
off-days this winter."

Lady Shaftesbury herself, after some pretty deliberation, decided to
enact the part of the Empress Maud, and escape on horseback from King
Stephen of Blois. Mr. Colt and Mr. Isidore Bamberger together wait